j.j. toothman

July 10th, 2008 / News, On Jude

Want to be the first to know when Jude is born?

Keturah is about to deliver any week now, preferably in about 15 minutes from right now.  But no later than August 4.  More than one person has explained that going through the process of pregnancy and childbirth is never the same twice and certainly not like the first child you have.  Just the other day I was talking with my neighbor (a mother of 3) about how Jude will be born soon, and we haven’t even painted his nursery or done all the other things you do BEFORE you have a baby.  Like buy diapers.  Her comment, “Yeah, that second one sorta sneaks up on you.”  Ain’t that the truth.

A significant difference the second time around is what we are planning to do to communicate our child’s birth announcement.  The first time around, we prepared in advance by going thru our Outlook address books and copying emails of friends and family into a excel spreadsheet. This spreadsheet was then converted into a comma delineated email draft that I had ready on my laptop.  When the day came, and our child was delivered, I would ultimately find my way to my laptop, add the necessary details (like if it was a boy or a girl), and send it out for all to see.

While there is still some time left, it would appear that none of that is going to happen this time around.  That was back in 2006.  And things have changed since then.

First, when we had our first child we didn’t find out the sex of the child until the actual the birth.  So many of our friends were eager to know if we were having a Mason or a Simone (our pre-determined boy and girl names).  This time around, we already know that we are having a son and everyone knows we are planning to name him Jude. 

Second, our tools have changed.  Quite bluntly email is not the most efficient mechanism for us to inform that Jude has been born, has ten fingers, ten toes, and weighs _______ .  In fact, I’ve recently tested the effectiveness of email vs. normal postal mail by sending a simultaneously emailing someone a document and dropping it into a post office box on the same day.  I’m curious to know what the better medium (email or snail mail) is for ensuring someone will read a 5 page document.  But I digress (and will cover the results of this test in a future post).

But the major difference is the tools that we have at our disposal to broadcast our messages.  Yes, in 2005 we had Flickr and this blog, but we have now augmented that with web tools like Facebook and Twitter.  And the ability to use these tools via our cell phones has improved greatly well.  One of the true beauties of Twitter is that utilizing your cell phone you can target the folks that are following you, but what you tweet is published to your public Twitter page as well.

So if you want to know right away, you should be following me on Twitter.  My plan is to provide updates throughout the process.  As much as possible.  And quite honestly, my role in this is almost inconsequential to what Keturah has to go through.  And when Jude is finally born, I’ll probably call my parents, then my grandmother, then Tweet the details.

Keturah and I both on Facebook, so it won’t be long before we post some items there as well.  Pics from my cell phone will be sent to Flickr and simultaneously to this blog.  And yeah, eventually we’ll get around to sending some emails around, but doubt that a conscious effort to let everyone know will occur right away.  In fact, it may be a few days.  Even a week. That’s the interesting state about email these days.  Its just not that efficient, anymore.

July 10th, 2008 / News, Thoughts

Social Media Club’s Call to Duty

I blogged about this over on Red Pill, but since my personal site URL was in the press release, I felt I should post a comment on the announcement of an interim Board of Directors made up of 42 industry leaders.  Of which, I am honored and humbled to be included in. 

Last week Chris Heuer sent an email to a list of his trusted colleagues asking for their participation in an interim board to make some critical organization decisions that will shape the organization into the future.  The most interesting thing about that email, and surely the subject of a future post somewhere, is that hardly anyone declined the invitation.  And secondly, its an impressive list of folks.  A group I’m proud to be a part of and confident will establish Social Media Club as an first-rate organization serving this rapidly emerging industry.

Here’s the entire list of everyone participating

 

There’s actually room for one more if you would like to participate.

July 9th, 2008 / News, Tech

Take the Red Pill

When I first deployed WordPress to this domain, I did it primarily because I liked how the WP software would allow me to publish more content to this site.  Previously I was using Dreamweaver to make new pages, create hyperlinks, move old content to different places, change the hyperlinks…and all that other stuff required for hand coded web sites, And yeah, that was a pain.  WordPress was a breath of fresh air.  It allowed me to focus on the fun part of having your own web site.  The content part of it. 

The purpose of this site has always been to share what what was happening in my life with my friends and family. Naturally, after Keturah and I got married the site began to center on what the two of us were up to.  And when Mason, was born…well, for a while things making it to this blog – especially the stuff coming via Flickr -  was almost entirely about Mason.  Now that Jude will be here in a matter of weeks, we expect another wave of “here’s what our baby is up to” posts.  What can I say, when your primary audience is your friends and family, that’s what they want to hear. 

But right around the time that I deployed WordPress here, blogging began to seriously take off.  If you are working in the web industry, like I do, It didn’t take long for it to become practically a requirement.  In many ways, your blog has replaced your resume.

So to show my expertise on the professional subject areas I found interesting and to share my knowledge, I began posting some content on web development and design.  But it never really worked.  Posts about cool WordPress plugins and themes along side posts about my infant son and a backpacking trip to Yosemite just didn’t work right.  They were polarizing the people who read my blog.  It soon became clear to me that I needed to keep the focus here on the less professional parts of my life but find another outlet to share my knowledge of the interweb and trends I’ve been noticing.

Just a few days ago, I launched that other outlet with my interweb partner-in-crime, Holly Hagen.  So if you’re curious about what I’m advising folks to do with social media, trends I’m noticing online, and general thoughts about web technology…then you need to take the red pill. 

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